Mumbai: With new COVID-19 curbs in place, rail and bus passenger numbers decline

As the new COVID-19 restrictions gain momentum, railways sees a drop of around 2 lakh per day, while BEST sees fall of about 4 lakh

The lockdown-like measures under the government’s ‘Break the Chain’ move have begun pulling down the footfall on the city’s public transport systems. While the ridership of local trains dropped by 2 lakh on Thursday, it was 4 lakh for the BEST.

Passenger numbers on the city’s public transport have begun to see a decline, as the new restrictions due to COVID-19 have started to gain momentum. While railway statistics reveal a drop in commuters to 2 lakh per day, BEST bus figures show a decline of about 4 lakh per day.

As per the latest data from Western Railway, the number of passengers started declining from Tuesday. While over 15 lakh passengers travelled every day till April 5 when the exact number was 15,48,846, the figures slid to 14 lakh with about 14,60,412 passengers travelling on April 7. On Central Railway too, the figures have come down by 2 lakh to 3 lakh per day with the average number of passengers going down from 22 lakh to 19 lakh as of Thursday.

Passengers at Borivli station on April 5. Commuter numbers on the AC local trains have also come down. Pic/Satej Shinde

The number of passengers on Western Railway’s AC local train too have come down from 6,000 on April 1 to 2,032 on April 7. On CR, the number of AC local train passengers was 1,163 on April 1, which came down by less than 50 p c to 579 passengers on April 7. As far as BEST is concerned, the number of passengers travelling by its buses was about 23,40,968 on April 1 and on April 6, it slid down to 20,37,248 passengers.

There were no new restrictions on local trains in the latest measures. Railway officials said that while there was no official communication from the Maharashtra government about any specific restrictions or regulations, a few in the know said shutting of private offices, shops and establishments was a sure shot way of reducing travelling crowds onboard Mumbai local trains and that passenger figures in the next few days would reveal key statistics.

Officials said that in the Break the Chain order released on Monday too there is nothing much on local trains. It only allows persons arriving/departing by train between 8 pm and 7 am or on weekends to travel to the train station or back home from the same on the basis of a valid ticket.

Fewer people are taking buses too. Pic/Suresh Karkera

Trains cancelled

CR on Thursday said that special trains to Shirdi, Pandharpur and Kolhapur Mahalaxmi temple had been witnessing poor patronage and had been cancelled due to low response till the month end. Sources said that since the second lockdown and further restrictions came into effect, trains to these destinations have been having low response, leading to very few bookings. The cancelled trains include both trips of Dadar-Sainagar Shirdi journey commencing from April 10, Dadar-Pandharpur train journey commencing from April 10 and Nagpur-Kolhapur train journey commencing on April 12.

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